Drop Out
by OwenHarpersGirl
Summary: Jesse makes the decision to drop out of high school, but is nervous about telling Dom. One-Shot


Drop Out

 **Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I affiliated with,** _ **The Fast and the Furious**_

 **Note: Jesse is sixteen in this story. I couldn't find anything that said exactly how old Jesse was in the film, but I found a lot of things that said he was 17/18 so I'm assuming he would've been about 16 when he dropped out.**

Jesse could feel his hands shaking as he walked towards DT's garage. He couldn't remember ever feeling this nervous or scared about talking to Dom. Except maybe when he moved in four years ago. But now... He was dreading the conversation.

"Hey Jess!" Mia smiled at him from behind the counter where she was going over the books.

"H-Hey," Jesse smiled slightly at her. "W-Where's Dom?"

"In the office," Mia pointed, "Are you okay?"

Jesse nodded jerkily and stumbled over to the office.

"H-Hey Dom, got a minute?"

Dom looked up and smiled at the boy. "Yeah, what's up Jess?"

Jesse sat down, shuffling his feet nervously and not looking at Dom.

"You feelin' okay Jess? You're really pale," Dom said.

"I-I'm fine," Jesse squeaked.

"Alright, well, what did you want to talk about?" He waited patiently for Jesse to start.

"I, um, I talked to my guidance councillor at school today," Jesse finally got out.

"Oh yeah? What did she say?" Dom asked. He had met Jesse's guidance councillor on multiple occasions when he went in to talk about Jesse's and she was nice woman. She was always trying to help Jesse do better.

Jesse didn't say anything, just pulled a piece of paper out of his bag and handed it to Dom. Jesse's transcripts.

"I'm failing everything," Jesse mumbled as Dom's eyes scanned over the page containing almost entirely D's and F's.

"Well, not everything," Dom smiled at him. "You've got an A in math."

"One A isn't enough for me to pass," Jesse said.

"Is that what your guidance councillor told you?" Dom questioned and Jesse nodded.

"She said I'll probably need to repeat the year cause my grades aren't high enough," Jesse murmured dejectedly, bouncing his leg up and down.

"So what do you want to do?" Dom asked.

Jesse bit his lip. "IthinkIwanttodropout," he said in one breath.

"Slow down a bit Jess," Dom smiled gently at him and Jesse took a deep breath.

"I- I think, um, I think I wanna drop out," Jesse said, slower this time.

"Okay," Dom said after a moment and Jesse's head snapped up.

"Really?"

"If that's what you want to do," Dom nodded.

"And you're not mad?" Jesse asked.

"Jess, school's never been your thing, and that's fine," Dom said. "You're not good at sitting in a classroom and doing history or English or whatever. But you're brilliant with math and cars and shit, all without sitting in some class. So, if you want to drop out then that's fine, but I have one condition."

"What's that?" Jesse asked warily.

"You come work here fulltime," Dom said and had to stop himself from laughing as Jesse's face lit up.

"Really?" he said, sounding excited.

Dom nodded. "You'll be doing the same things you always have been, but if you're going to be working here fulltime we can see about having you do your test soon so you can actually work on other people's cars and not just ours."

Jesse's eyes were practically glowing and he was bouncing up and down in his seat.

"We'll talk to your councillor tomorrow and find out what we need to do, alright?" He stood up and walked around his desk.

Jesse stood too. "Thanks Dom," he beamed at the older man as Dom ruffled his hair.

"Why don't you go do some work?" he said, "I think Vince was having an issue he wanted to look at."

"When are we going to tell them?" Jesse asked.

"You can tell 'em whenever you want," Dom said, "We'll talk about it more tonight during dinner."

Jesse nodded and bounded over to Vince who immediately pulled Jesse over to his car.

Dom watched with a fond smile.

"Everything alright?" Letty asked, coming to stand next to him.

"Yeah," Dom nodded, wrapping his arm around her, "Jesse's gonna be working here full time."

"Good, we need his brain here," Letty said. "He's too smart for that school anyway."

Dom smiled, looking at Jesse hard at work for another moment before pulling Letty into the office, both of them laughing.

 **I had a really hard time writing this story for some reason. I knew exactly what I wanted to happen, but I was having a hard time actually getting it on paper. Hope I did okay and that you like it!**

 **I always enjoy stories about Jesse and the rest of the team and I was really interested in kind of how that conversation might have gone when Jesse decided to drop out.**

 **Thanks so much for reading and let me know what you think!**


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